“Steel Bars and Stone Walls” – Wynonna Earp S02E01 Review

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And…with “Steel Bars and Stone Walls” we’re back. And confused. The whole “Waverly gets possessed and shoots Wynonna and Doc,” was a tad misleading, wasn’t it? We start in media res with Doc and Waverly running through the forest from a beasty. Yes, they say that Waverly shot at the creature. But it’s still kind of confusing.

They also set up a cute running gag as the monster eats Doc’s hat, and then everyone comments on it throughout the episode.

We also get the introduction of a new character, Eliza Shapiro. She has some kind of connection to Dolls, although they’re not lovers. Rather, they both had the same thing happen to them in wherever they were. The thing that turned Dolls into a yellow-eyed beast. Or turned him from a yellow-eyed beast into a human as long as he drinks his potion. It was a bit hard to tell over all the yelling and the dim lighting inside the Black Badge base.

We also got two minor new characters: Jeremy Chetri, a Black Badge tech who is a bit too gullible and falls for Waverly’s awful British accent. And will probably show up in future given how much time they spent on him here. There’s also Moody, the next step up in the Black Badge chain of command, above the obnoxious Lucado.

Most of the episode focused on the Black Badge Division, or BBD. Which are kind of boring. Unfortunately, judging by tonight’s premiere it looks like the monsters will become more growling beasts and stunt guys in makeup. Which seem to lack the personality of any revenant, much less Bobo.

Then again, last year Wynonna Earp jumped from bad guy to bad guy on an almost weekly basis. So it wouldn’t surprise me of some smooth relatively-suave demon master shows up in a few episodes.,

As for the regular gang, they’re all hear and doing what they do typically. Wynonna sarcastic, Waverly is peppy, Doc is an odd combination of 19th and 21st century. Dolls really doesn’t get much to do this episode, as he spends most of his time in a cage with glowing yellow eyes. And make a mysterious appearance at the end.

Since it’s SyFy and there’s women, we get an extended scene of newcomer Rachel Skarsten (IElizabeth I on Reign, Tamsin on Lost Girl, and an even more annoying Dinah Lance than Katie Cassidy on Birds of Prey) in her underwear. Because girl power! You never saw Sam or Dean fighting in their underwear, did you? Or did they once on Supernatural, and I missed it?

There’s also a subplot with Nicole Haught *snicker* wanting to be a Black Badge agent but Waverly lying to protect her. Which seems a little odd that BBD would fall for it given that Nicole spends some time in a bi a big parking garage… somewhere. That, and the BBD seems to know anything anyway. But they don’t know about Nicole?

And that’s the problem with the BBD. They’re portrayed as near-omnipotent, but yet they don’t know about Nicole. Also, being near-omnipotent makes for a so-so threat. BBD and the Earp Gang reach an accord of sorts. They now work for BBD (except for Nicole) and BBD will maybe work to break the Earp curse. And in return BBD has access to the Peacemaker. I suppose it keeps the second season going.

Maybe it’s also the fact that they seem a lot like the British Men of Letters that we just got through with on Supernatural.

I can’t imagine “Steel Bars…” drawing a lot of new viewers in. It seemed to be mostly wrap-up from last season and set-up for whatever is going on in at least the first few episodes of this season.